April 14. The year is 1865. Thanks to President Lincoln, slaves are free, the civil war is over, and the country is once again whole. Who could blame the man for wanting to celebrate? Who would know that while the president convinced his wife to accompany him to a play, a killer lurked at the theater, waiting for the president of the United States to fall into his carefully plotted trap?
The time is 10:00 p.m. The place is Ford’s Theater. The play is Our American Cousin, currently the most famous play in the nation. But soon it would be famous for a completely different reason. It would become famous for the play being preformed while the nation most beloved hero was killed.
At exactly 10:15 p.m., a gunshot went off. No one heard. Thanks to knowledge of the play, the man who pulled the trigger knew that at 10:15, the crowd would be laughing too uproariously to hear anything. Even a gunshot.
We all know what happens next. Lincoln’s murderer, renowned actor John Wilkes Booth, leapt from the balcony, catching his leg on the banner, but he managed to land on the stage and shout, “Sic semper tyrannis,” Latin for “Thus always to tyrants.” He dashed out the door and jumped on horseback in time to safely escape.
But does anyone truly know what happened next? In Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, a distilled version of the bestseller Manhunt, author James L. Sawnson goes into riveting detail of the twelve-day manhunt following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Not only is this book action-packed and exciting, but I think the best part is that it’s a true story. From every line to every detail of a uniform, the facts are straight and perfect. I usually don’t like nonfiction, but this book is absolutely perfect. After reading this book, one can not only truly say what happened at 10:15 on April 14, 1865. A reader can also relish in the adventure of the following twelve days the world seems to forget.
